Premiere Retirement With Jeff Vogan
Oct 17, 2026 · 51 min · 24 segments
In this episode Jeff discusses a million dollars saved, but how much is yours to spend? Also Tax Tips with Taylor, listener questions, and AI can give you financial answers, but can it give you a…
We're gonna touch on the political environment and the results of the midterms here in just a moment and how it may affect your money.
If you've got, let's say $300,000, $500,000, $1 million or more saved for retirement, how much of that money is going to be actually yours to spend because it seems like, "Hey, I've got a partner here in this thing."
I think the biggest chunk of money we see in any retirement plan is a 401[k] or some sort of deferred plan, even a retirement nest egg that people can lump sum, roll it into an income stream through an annuity or a TSP, some sort of a savings plan through government or some sort of a chunk of a large percentage, like somebody has a $2 million estate, more than a million of it's probably in deferred accounts that haven't been taxed, which means you've kept that partner along, and they want to get their money.
The mantra is still tax the rich and give to the poor and spend the money, uh, tax the people that can afford it, supposedly.
They think that anybody who's rich, and I don't know what that level is, maybe it's anybody making over $100,000 or whatever or anybody over, with, has more than $1 million in a 401[k].
The bottom line is, is they let you put off paying taxes on that money so that you'll have a much bigger chunk down the road that they can tax potentially, and probably most cases that I see with the clientele that we deal with on a regular basis, they're in a higher tax bracket in retirement that they were when they were working, making a good living.
Now, if you've made some plans along the way, if you've paid the taxes along the way and got rid of, basically you've been buying off your IRS partner, basically going through the, uh, long process of divorcing that partner from your tax marriage, so to speak, then you might be in better shape than someone else who hasn't planned.
Some people wait till they're retired, and all of a sudden now they're finally in a, what they think is a low tax bracket and try to do some planning.
That might in fact be the best way to do it because you might have been making multi six-figure incomes or maybe even seven figures while you're working, and it's probably not a great time to do tax planning, paying taxes in advance at 40% when you could maybe get out of it at 30 or under.
So again, paying taxes at the lowest tax bracket possible is really the smart thing, and if you can pay your taxes at a lower tax rate on less money, even better.
If you're in your 20s or 30s and planning for retirement in the future, doing some tax planning now might not be a bad idea.
Most people just are busy paying the bills and raising kids and trying to figure out how to have a family and buy a house, so that's kind of the last thing on their mind.
However, when you're in your 50s or 60s and start getting to that empty nest era and you don't have kids, you don't have all those things that are bugging you to spend money on, now your money is more in your control.
We're gonna touch on the political environment and the results of the midterms here in just a moment and how it may affect your money.
If you've got, let's say $300,000, $500,000, $1 million or more saved for retirement, how much of that money is going to be actually yours to spend because it seems like, "Hey, I've got a partner here in this thing."
I think the biggest chunk of money we see in any retirement plan is a 401[k] or some sort of deferred plan, even a retirement nest egg that people can lump sum, roll it into an income stream through an annuity or a TSP, some sort of a savings plan through government or some sort of a chunk of a large percentage, like somebody has a $2 million estate, more than a million of it's probably in deferred accounts that haven't been taxed, which means you've kept that partner along, and they want to get their money.
The mantra is still tax the rich and give to the poor and spend the money, uh, tax the people that can afford it, supposedly.
They think that anybody who's rich, and I don't know what that level is, maybe it's anybody making over $100,000 or whatever or anybody over, with, has more than $1 million in a 401[k].
The bottom line is, is they let you put off paying taxes on that money so that you'll have a much bigger chunk down the road that they can tax potentially, and probably most cases that I see with the clientele that we deal with on a regular basis, they're in a higher tax bracket in retirement that they were when they were working, making a good living.
Now, if you've made some plans along the way, if you've paid the taxes along the way and got rid of, basically you've been buying off your IRS partner, basically going through the, uh, long process of divorcing that partner from your tax marriage, so to speak, then you might be in better shape than someone else who hasn't planned.
Some people wait till they're retired, and all of a sudden now they're finally in a, what they think is a low tax bracket and try to do some planning.
That might in fact be the best way to do it because you might have been making multi six-figure incomes or maybe even seven figures while you're working, and it's probably not a great time to do tax planning, paying taxes in advance at 40% when you could maybe get out of it at 30 or under.
So again, paying taxes at the lowest tax bracket possible is really the smart thing, and if you can pay your taxes at a lower tax rate on less money, even better.
If you're in your 20s or 30s and planning for retirement in the future, doing some tax planning now might not be a bad idea.
Most people just are busy paying the bills and raising kids and trying to figure out how to have a family and buy a house, so that's kind of the last thing on their mind.
However, when you're in your 50s or 60s and start getting to that empty nest era and you don't have kids, you don't have all those things that are bugging you to spend money on, now your money is more in your control.
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